Which One?

Need to change provider, or stay with my current one on a new contract. So after some help.

Ideally want an all in one telephone and FTTC package, really would like decent throughput in the evenings, and some half decent support. And I donít want Sky BB.

Iím currently on BT Infinity 55MBPS, works alright but Iíve lost my IPV6 for no apparent reason, havenít contacted them yet but know itíll be hard to resolve with their technical services so want someone who is easy to deal with. Plus not bothered about it.
Has to unlimited BB use too.

I have my own DrayTek Vigor 130 modem and Google WiFi and do not want to change it.

So far Iíve thought if IDNet, Pulse 8, AAISP are way too expensive plus donít do telephones. Pulse 8 any good?
Also thought about Plusnet or staying with BT if I wonít get anything better with the others?

Are IDNet still worth it? Thinking of possibly jumping up to the 75mbps speeds, no idea if Iíll ever get 300mbps on my line.

Thanks in advance

Oh and I would like a provider who doesnít put their prices up mid contract either!

Re: Which One?

Well we provide v6 natively, we are based in Sussex so we do all speak with a very southern England accent and have decent technical services (But then I would say that ).
Our rates are here https://www.trunknetworks.com/broadband/superfast/ and if you see unacceptable slow downs in the evening, 'Our commitment to you' (A precursor to the OfCOM code of conduct which we are working on signing up to) will ensure you have a way out.

Re: Which One?

I have no problem with Puse8 in 3 years. Support is good when needed. Broadband speed consistent.
Only one price rise in 3 years. Due to change in line rental structure.
1 month contract, albeit with £59 connection cost. Price competitive. For my use the cost per minute of phone calls is better than other packages.
Only low user though

Re: Which One?

I've had single thread speed problems with both. The Pulse8 issues was resolved after Adam badgered TTB to death. The IDNet issues is still in play, so we will have to wait and see on that one.

Both ISPs have impressed me in that they have been willing to work with me to try and get the single thread speed issues resolved.

Out of the two, it's hard to split them. Pulse8 is a smaller company and relies on Adam & Sam to provide the Broadband support. IDNet is bigger and provides nominal 24x7 cover.

In terms of value for money, it's hard to go against Pulse8. However it will cost you to move back onto a BTw phone line downstream. I made the choice to jump back to a BTw phone line and am relatively happy with IDNet.

I'm not willing to pay AAISP money and if I were to migrate now, it would almost certainly be to Uno.

Re: Which One?

I've had single thread speed problems with both. The Pulse8 issues was resolved after Adam badgered TTB to death. The IDNet issues is still in play, so we will have to wait and see on that one.

Both ISPs have impressed me in that they have been willing to work with me to try and get the single thread speed issues resolved.

Out of the two, it's hard to split them. Pulse8 is a smaller company and relies on Adam & Sam to provide the Broadband support. IDNet is bigger and provides nominal 24x7 cover.

In terms of value for money, it's hard to go against Pulse8. However it will cost you to move back onto a BTw phone line downstream. I made the choice to jump back to a BTw phone line and am relatively happy with IDNet.

I'm not willing to pay AAISP money and if I were to migrate now, it would almost certainly be to Uno.

Thanks, how has the single thread speed issue affected you? Has it affected Netflix or streaming etc? I want to use the connection to try out the new Nvidia GeForce Now game streaming service.

Re: Which One?

Have a search through the forums and I doubt you'll find a negative word about them.

Well UNO do use a very Ďspecialí in-house dsl availability checker which means they cannot offer their great service to everyone - despite other ISPs and the BT/Openreach checker suggesting otherwise for the same property. I believe I am not alone in experiencing this

Re: Which One?

I'm also suffering from single threaded performance issues with IDnet despite them telling me no-one else is complaining. I never experienced these issues with TalkTalk residential. Apparently there is some work being done on the 12th which may help me so will wait and see. I looked at Pulse8, TTB and UNO myself but none of those support IPv6 which I do use for testing for work.

Re: Which One?

small company = good in my opinion. As you get personalised support, and the support person knowing they will face you again (accountability) will also have to deal with the repercussions of bad support so more effort is given.

AAISP when I was with them it was always shawn.
Falconnet (entanet reseller) it was always rupert, I think a one man operation.

In both those cases I would say support was above what a big name will ever give you like BT, sky etc. To get personalised support on a big name provider generally only happens when you raise to exec level and a complaints person is assigned to you or e.g. messaging a staff member on plusnet forums.

Re: Which One?

Have a search through the forums and I doubt you'll find a negative word about them.

Well UNO do use a very Ďspecialí in-house dsl availability checker which means they cannot offer their great service to everyone - despite other ISPs and the BT/Openreach checker suggesting otherwise for the same property. I believe I am not alone in experiencing this

Re: Which One?

I'm also suffering from single threaded performance issues with IDnet despite them telling me no-one else is complaining. I never experienced these issues with TalkTalk residential. Apparently there is some work being done on the 12th which may help me so will wait and see. I looked at Pulse8, TTB and UNO myself but none of those support IPv6 which I do use for testing for work.

Interestingly we are not reporting the same issue. Mu single thread speed is nigh on 50% of my sync speed, regardless of the time of day I test; your's seems to vary with the time of day.

I'm also waiting on the network changes on the 12th. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Re: Which One?

I'm also suffering from single threaded performance issues with IDnet despite them telling me no-one else is complaining. I never experienced these issues with TalkTalk residential. Apparently there is some work being done on the 12th which may help me so will wait and see. I looked at Pulse8, TTB and UNO myself but none of those support IPv6 which I do use for testing for work.

Hmm well I looked at UNO and they are more expensive, plus their websites a nightmare to navigate and doesnít offer combined fibre and landline, which looks like one with TTB and the other with Openreach?
Although as I want IPV6 I think Idnet May be the only choice then?

I think Iíll wait till after the 12th then, Iím in no rush hmm still thinking if Idnet or Pulse8.

Re: Which One?

Have a search through the forums and I doubt you'll find a negative word about them.

Well UNO do use a very Ďspecialí in-house dsl availability checker which means they cannot offer their great service to everyone - despite other ISPs and the BT/Openreach checker suggesting otherwise for the same property. I believe I am not alone in experiencing this

Yes which is odd - I still to this day can't get their service - i am not in a FTTC are apparently... they don't even offer it to some tight fisted yorkshiremen in Sheffield - even the ones down t'road

I used to live down t'road - but I am not a tight fisted Yorkshireman.

Re: Which One?

Why don't you simply raise a ticket with BT to sort out the ip6 thing?

In my view, nowadays there is no need to pay more to suffer slow speeds and be on first name terms with the one man band.

Because they donít officially support IPV6 for residential broadband, so you can speak to the technical support, but their are no guarantees they will do anything about it. Thatís not the technical support I want, ergo I want to leave them.

Re: Which One?

Do you mean you left BT for Idnet? When are they going to switch you to an Ooen Reach line? I just ran a Speedtest using the one youíve linked to in your sig, 55 down and 9.7 up. So theirs not much wrong with my Open rwach FTTC line, but it is 12:20AM mind!

Re: Which One?

Except for the tiny percentage of new fibre lines in a few cities, all landlines that run to our homes are either Openreach or Virgin Media cable. Plus Kingston and Hull which has its own system, or did.

Virgin Media is a case on its own as its lines only support itís own broadband.

Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Uno, IDNet, Zen and all the others use Openreach lines at least to the exchange, That includes FTTC, FTTP and ADSLx. Most ISPs use BT Wholesale (controlled) services on the fibre and copper lines. The LLU Suppliers control the Openreach copper lines that they use, but not really the FTTC and FTTP lines between us and the exchange.

Zen are a sort of half-way house between BT Wholesale and LLU as far as I can tell. IDNet use some BT Wholesale and some Zen services. But all those lines are Openreach as far as the exchange, both copper and fibre.

Re: Which One?

here is probably nothing else to be found complaining about the products performances or the customer service.

Well, as the company will never give some of us the chance to experience it - we will never know.. thank goodness they are one of many - however you would think with my old employer* in the same town - they would be crying out to get all the customers they can - maybe it's just a hobby for whoever owns/runs it?

Re: Which One?

I only ordered the cease on Wednesday afternoon. It gave a drop down list of dates to kill it, starting what is now today. I expect Openreach will take a while though for their bit, but my AA service will be gone.

Re: Which One?

Yes, The Virgin 4G I have is serving me very well as I am out and about a lot, including a lot of time at our Scottish property. A Godsend when the FTTC is down here and honestly could replace it. £20 per month for more than I ever use along with 5,000 minutes, tethering and unlimited texts the best deal I have ever done, especially with the £10 lifetime discount.

Re: Which One?

Yes, The Virgin 4G I have is serving me very well as I am out and about a lot, including a lot of time at our Scottish property. A Godsend when the FTTC is down here and honestly could replace it. £20 per month for more than I ever use along with 5,000 minutes, tethering and unlimited texts the best deal I have ever done, especially with the £10 lifetime discount.

So you have the same deal that I got - I am about half way through the 200GB but I have given up now - at least it will roll over

Re: Which One?

As probably one of the few who has experienced both, here's my thoughts.

I migrated from Pulse8 to Aquiss, but experienced very variable single thread speeds, particularly during the working day when business traffic is prioritised.

Martin thought the reason for my performance issues may have been down to the Entanet Manchester node , which was awaiting a bandwidth upgrade. He agreed to release me from my contract and I migrated to IDNet with with a TTB backhaul.

Again variable single thread speeds, but they agreed to move me to BTw backhaul, which was the best FTTC experience I have had with consistently good single thread speeds. I stopped running TBB tests for a couple of months in July and August, did a quick check in September and found my single thread speeds had dropped to half my multi thread speeds.

I am now awaiting the outcome of some network change by IDNet's supplier on the 12th to see if it resolves the issue.

If not I may well give Uno a try.

TBH, I had single-thread speed issues when at Pulse 8, which Adam managed to push TTB into fixing, so there is something about my connection which feels slightly blighted.

If I had to make a straight choice between Aquiss and IDNet, I would plump for IDNet just.

Re: Which One?

As probably one of the few who has experienced both, here's my thoughts.

I migrated from Pulse8 to Aquiss, but experienced very variable single thread speeds, particularly during the working day when business traffic is prioritised.

Martin thought the reason for my performance issues may have been down to the Entanet Manchester node , which was awaiting a bandwidth upgrade. He agreed to release me from my contract and I migrated to IDNet with with a TTB backhaul.

Again variable single thread speeds, but they agreed to move me to BTw backhaul, which was the best FTTC experience I have had with consistently good single thread speeds. I stopped running TBB tests for a couple of months in July and August, did a quick check in September and found my single thread speeds had dropped to half my multi thread speeds.

I am now awaiting the outcome of some network change by IDNet's supplier on the 12th to see if it resolves the issue.

If not I may well give Uno a try.

TBH, I had single-thread speed issues when at Pulse 8, which Adam managed to push TTB into fixing, so there is something about my connection which feels slightly blighted.

If I had to make a straight choice between Aquiss and IDNet, I would plump for IDNet just.

Thank you so much for the reply, hmm thatís almost an argument to stay on BT or move to Plusnet! So weíll have to wait till after Wednesday, do post back with what happens.

Re: Which One?

Thank you so much for the reply, hmm thatís almost an argument to stay on BT or move to Plusnet! So weíll have to wait till after Wednesday, do post back with what happens.

I've heard of cases where people have moved from cheap budget ISPs to more expensive (niche) providers and actually found their connection worse wrt single thread speeds. Paying more might give you better support but won't guarantee you a better connection. If I was you I would stay with BT (if speeds are fine), better the devil you know and all that...

Re: Which One?

Thank you so much for the reply, hmm thatís almost an argument to stay on BT or move to Plusnet! So weíll have to wait till after Wednesday, do post back with what happens.

I have a pretty open mind about whether my single thread speed issues are backhaul related or in the OR part before it reaches the backhaul.

My FTTC cabinet is the other side of the front garden wall and there is nothing in my stats to suggest the issue is between the house and the cabinet and I have tried different modems and routers both from the test socket and the filtered faceplate. The one thing I am convinced about is that my issues aren't local.

Re: Which One?

Thank you so much for the reply, hmm thatís almost an argument to stay on BT or move to Plusnet! So weíll have to wait till after Wednesday, do post back with what happens.

I've heard of cases where people have moved from cheap budget ISPs to more expensive (niche) providers and actually found their connection worse wrt single thread speeds. Paying more might give you better support but won't guarantee you a better connection. If I was you I would stay with BT (if speeds are fine), better the devil you know and all that...

Possibly, but as I said earlier Iíve lost all my IPV6 on my line, BT donít officially support it for residential lines, thatís not very good service IMO and where the smaller companies come in and shine.

Re: Which One?

Iíve lost all my IPV6 on my line, BT donít officially support it for residential lines, thatís not very good service IMO and where the smaller companies come in and shine.

Why don't you ask BT - ideally via their forums - to see if they can re-instate ipv6 on your line? The BT forum staff will know what you're talking about and give you a clear answer wrt ipv6. At least give them a chance to resolve this.

Re: Which One?

Iíve lost all my IPV6 on my line, BT donít officially support it for residential lines, thatís not very good service IMO and where the smaller companies come in and shine.

Why don't you ask BT - ideally via their forums - to see if they can re-instate ipv6 on your line? The BT forum staff will know what you're talking about and give you a clear answer wrt ipv6. At least give them a chance to resolve this.

I did! And the last response I got was ĎWhy are you so desperate to have IPv6?í.... yeah sums up the help from the forums there. Iíve repeatedly asked for a moderator to take a look and not one response from any of them. Waste of time.

Re: Which One?

Iíve lost all my IPV6 on my line, BT donít officially support it for residential lines, thatís not very good service IMO and where the smaller companies come in and shine.

Why don't you ask BT - ideally via their forums - to see if they can re-instate ipv6 on your line? The BT forum staff will know what you're talking about and give you a clear answer wrt ipv6. At least give them a chance to resolve this.

I did! And the last response I got was ĎWhy are you so desperate to have IPv6?í.... yeah sums up the help from the forums there. Iíve repeatedly asked for a moderator to take a look and not one response from any of them. Waste of time.

Re: Which One?

As probably one of the few who has experienced both, here's my thoughts.

I migrated from Pulse8 to Aquiss, but experienced very variable single thread speeds, particularly during the working day when business traffic is prioritised.

Martin thought the reason for my performance issues may have been down to the Entanet Manchester node , which was awaiting a bandwidth upgrade. He agreed to release me from my contract and I migrated to IDNet with with a TTB backhaul.

Again variable single thread speeds, but they agreed to move me to BTw backhaul, which was the best FTTC experience I have had with consistently good single thread speeds. I stopped running TBB tests for a couple of months in July and August, did a quick check in September and found my single thread speeds had dropped to half my multi thread speeds.

I am now awaiting the outcome of some network change by IDNet's supplier on the 12th to see if it resolves the issue.

If not I may well give Uno a try.

TBH, I had single-thread speed issues when at Pulse 8, which Adam managed to push TTB into fixing, so there is something about my connection which feels slightly blighted.

If I had to make a straight choice between Aquiss and IDNet, I would plump for IDNet just.

So has your fault now been fixed? Are your single speeds now back to normal?

Re: Which One?

Thank you so much for the reply, hmm thatís almost an argument to stay on BT or move to Plusnet! So weíll have to wait till after Wednesday, do post back with what happens.

I've heard of cases where people have moved from cheap budget ISPs to more expensive (niche) providers and actually found their connection worse wrt single thread speeds. Paying more might give you better support but won't guarantee you a better connection. If I was you I would stay with BT (if speeds are fine), better the devil you know and all that...

Possibly, but as I said earlier Iíve lost all my IPV6 on my line, BT donít officially support it for residential lines, thatís not very good service IMO and where the smaller companies come in and shine.

Re: Which One?

I've heard of cases where people have moved from cheap budget ISPs to more expensive (niche) providers and actually found their connection worse wrt single thread speeds. Paying more might give you better support but won't guarantee you a better connection. If I was you I would stay with BT (if speeds are fine), better the devil you know and all that...

Possibly, but as I said earlier Iíve lost all my IPV6 on my line, BT donít officially support it for residential lines, thatís not very good service IMO and where the smaller companies come in and shine.

If you use the HH6 they do - I had it for ages on my line

It is working fine, I plugged my Smarthub back in the other evening and IPv6 was working fine... seems since my Google WFi did itís last update it has stopped IPV6 from working. I have a Draytek Vigor 130 too.

So Iíll need to think because no way Iím swapping my kit out, they made changes so IPv6 is disabled by default on PPPOE. Everything works and performs fine. May just forget about IPV6? Seems I should have thought of trying the old BT Hub first haha!

Iíll try a restore on my Google WFi still just to see.

But thanks for the update on the single thread performance, I will look more into IDNet in January, no point doing it now.
Iíll have to weigh up the pros and cons and compare pricing, Iím currently on 55/ 10 package, I was thinking of the 80/ 20 one.

As usual these things come down to value and price, but I think IDnet would be my choice of small ISP.

Re: Which One?

How long is it then, 10days? There certainly is a period of time whilst DLM adjusts your line during an initial connection.

Day 1: I got about 68Mbps (originally this was 79Mbps. Latency increased to 22ms.
Day 2: SNR increased from 6.3 to 7.3 and speed bumped back up to 79Mbps.
Day 3: SNR decreased back down to 6.1. G.INP was turned on.
Day 4: Latency dropped to 13ms.

Re: Which One?

How long is it then, 10days? There certainly is a period of time whilst DLM adjusts your line during an initial connection.

Day 1: I got about 68Mbps (originally this was 79Mbps. Latency increased to 22ms.
Day 2: SNR increased from 6.3 to 7.3 and speed bumped back up to 79Mbps.
Day 3: SNR decreased back down to 6.1. G.INP was turned on.
Day 4: Latency dropped to 13ms.

DLM will take 2 weeks straight, or 14 days to complete, no less and no more. After that it just constantly monitors your line but does nothing pretty much unless you have a fault, or turn your modem on and off enough to mimick a fault.
Some ISPís policies is to allow the DLM to expire those 14 days before continuing to report a fault if you still have one.

Re: Which One?

That applied to BT Wholesale ADSL, and the period was 10 days - and this was largely to set the FTR/MSR so if DLM later altered the line and the rates were lower than originally "trained" within that 10 days, it was considered a fault.

It does not apply in the same way with VDSL on Openreach hardware, regardless of the ISP.

Re: Which One?

For a start, DLM on ADSL2+ and DLM on FTTC act in completely different ways. The first acts on BT Wholesale MSANs/DSLAMs at the exchange to BT Wholesale specifications. The second works on Openreach DSLAMs in the cabinets, to Openreach specifications.

The only significant commonality between them from the end user point of view is that for BT Wholesale-based ISPs an IP Profile is applied by the BT Wholesale BRAS system for both ADSLx and FTTC when it is notified of the connection speed and applied in their backhaul.

It is not applied (so far as I know) in the Openreach DSLAMs. It is nothing to do with Openreach.

The 10-day period, as WG says, is a complete myth. On both services. On ADSLx it is used purely to calculate the Maximum Stable Rate and Fault Threshold Rate, which are set by the lowest sync during the 10 days. The actions the DLM takes during that ten days are just like they are all the time.

FTTC DLM has an initial "grace period" of 24-48 hours when DLM basically works and may take a few hours to settle from first connection, but in seriously unstable lines will cap the maximum sync in both directions to obtain stability. It can also cap the line at any future time if certain criteria are exceeded.

I don't think there has ever been a 14-day period involved for anything technical. The nearest I can think of off-hand is the ten working days Ofcom stipulate for a migrating user to change their mind. Even that isn't always 14 calendar days, as Bank Holidays are excluded as well. Not just Saturday and Sunday.

Re: Which One?

Training & Stabilisation - Setting the MSR and FTR. The stabilisation period is a 'one off' event that occurs during the first 10 day training period with adsl connections. Details about the MSR and FTR are explained elsewhere on the site: MSR & FTR.
FTTC does not have a training period. The FTR is set at 15Mbps for lines which sync at >15Mbps or 2Mbps for lines which sync between 2-15Mbps.

Re: Which One?

It does not apply in the same way with VDSL on Openreach hardware, regardless of the ISP.

Though the BT Wholesale checker erroneously says it does . Amongst other faults on its display such is "premise" in some recent additions rather then the correct "premises" already (and still present) there in earlier editions.

Re: Which One?

It does run for 2 weeks, it did it twice this year on my line due to my messing about with equipment, speeds are capped and are put back after two weeks. And thatís a fact. No idea where you got your info from.

Re: Which One?

It does run for 2 weeks, it did it twice this year on my line due to my messing about with equipment, speeds are capped and are put back after two weeks. And thatís a fact. No idea where you got your info from.

That is not proof of anything. You can be capped for months, or even permanently. Do a search on the Fibre forum for capped for All posts.

You'll get a lot of irrelevant stuff but there will be many that will show you are wrong.

And don't be so rude. You seem to be good at it, which isn't advisable on a help forum if you get a reputation for it.

Re: Which One?

On ECI cabinets the line starts as fast as line conditions will let it (up to product speed), no training, just a wide open profile with fast path.
If the line is stable it will stay as it is.
On Hauwei it also starts wide open, but because there is no fast path anymore it will start interleaved, and providing the line is stable it will follow the path of enabling g.inp and changing xDB profiles over time. It was just luck yours took 2 weeks, for another person they may stop getting changes after a few days, or maybe get no changes at all,

Capping and then putting the speeds back in a 2 week period is not typical DLM behaviour.

Re: Which One?

Still need to feed back to IDNet and to get a better explanation of what changes have been made.

Had an update from IDNet. Apparently I was with Zen backhaul (even though I thought they had moved me to BTw backhaul this January) and am now with BTw backhaul (which is where I thought I was) if you get my drift.

Re: Which One?

Pretty much the same here. I was on ZEN LLU backhaul and suffering peak single thread problems. I was told a few weeks ago that a switch to BT backhaul was on the cards and should sort my problem, though their suppliers denied a problem which is usual for all suppliers in these circumstances, but IdNet got it sorted.